


Brick to the Side of the Head

by kho



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: First Time, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 21:40:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5514296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kho/pseuds/kho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To say it came out of nowhere as far as Steve was concerned would be a major understatement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brick to the Side of the Head

**Author's Note:**

> Set vague season 6ish, no real spoilers, just "hasn't happened yet".

To say it came out of nowhere as far as Steve was concerned would be a major understatement. One minute he was getting looked over by the paramedic, the next his head was being knocked into the side of the ambulance because a ten pound brick hit the side of his head.

Oh no. Wait. That was Danny’s fist.

“What the hell,” Steve says, touching his hand to his mouth and coming away with blood. “Danny--”

“This conversation is _not_ over my friend,” Danny grits out, poking a finger angrily in the freshly bandaged bullet track in his shoulder where the slug had nearly cost him any future games of pickup football. He kept saying it was a graze, just a flesh wound, but the truth was it hurt like a motherfucker. “Not even close!”

“In what way was that a conversation,” Steve asks, but Danny is already halfway across the parking lot shaking off Kono’s hand on his shoulder and the paramedic is looking at him with wide eyes and a horrified expression. “It’s okay,” he says, offering her a shrug and a smile. “Adrenaline.” 

He expects the rant to happen when he gets into Danny’s car but Danny is dead silent and staring out of the window the entire time. Steve’s hands tighten on the wheel.   “That really hurt ya know.”

“Sorry,” Danny says, with a wave of the hand that says ‘but really, not at all.’

“Danny.”

“No.”

Steve sighs. “Danny.”

“Nope,” Danny says, and crosses his arms, and the set of his jaw and shoulders tells Steve that this conversation they haven’t even started yet is going to be pretty ugly but it’s not going to be happening right now. Instead, they drive in silence all the way back to Five O Headquarters and that right there is wrong on so many levels that Steve actually feels sick to his stomach.

For the next four hours Danny is a grenade with the pin pulled, ready to explode the second anything touches him, bristling at every thing and every one, and Steve can’t get him to look at him for anything. They do their job, they get the intel, they get their guy, and he says “Book ‘em Danno” to the back of Danny’s head because Danny’s already walking away with the perp in tow.

“Any clue,” Chin asks to his left.

“Not the slightest,” Steve says, shaking his head, hands on his hips as he watches Danny slam the perp’s head accidentally-on-purpose into the car’s roof as he’s shoving him inside.

“Well he did have a gun aimed directly at his head for a good three minutes there,” Kono says to their right. “Only so many times that can happen before it starts to work your nerves.”

Steve can still hear the click of the hammer, see the spasm of the guys finger move on the trigger. “No reason to take it out on me, though.”

“This is Danny we’re talking about,” Chin says, smirking. “He can find a reason to take everything out on you.”

It’s not until that evening as Steve is pulling into his driveway to see Danny sitting outside on the porch, head hanging down as his legs bounce up and down agitatedly that Steve thinks, finally, I’m gonna get some answers.

“Beer,” Steve asks as they walk into the kitchen, the word barely out of his mouth before Danny has him shoved up against the wall, all anger and dominance and something indefinable that makes Steve not able to say all the things he normally would say when he’s got an unreasonably pissed Danny up in his face. “Danny?”

“Don’t,” Danny grits out, hands gripping in his shirt, twisting it like he just wants to claw the skin off of Steve’s chest. “Just. Shut up. Just be quiet for a.” Danny looks up at him and Steve really isn’t sure if he’s going to punch him again or scream in his face. “You never—ever— do that again, you understand me?”

Steve swallows and searched for some kind of answer in Danny’s eyes. “What are you--”

“Don’t,” Danny grits out, letting him go and jabbing a finger into his arm again.   Again, right there, right where the bullet had grazed him. Right where it would hurt the most. “Don’t get cute, don’t play dumb, it ain’t funny, okay? It’s not.” He waves his hand around like he’s searching for a word that’s just out of his grasp. “It’s just not.”

“I honestly have no idea what--”

“I’m supposed to live with myself,” Danny screams, eyes wild, hands reaching out again to grab Steve’s shirt, yanking him forward towards him. “I’m supposed to just be okay, knowing that you died from a bullet that was meant for me!”

The cocking of the hammer. The spasm of the finger. That one split second between when Steve knew Danny was about to be shot in the head and the moment that Steve lunged forward and took a graze in the shoulder instead. That’s what this was.

“Danny,” Steve says, reaching up and taking Danny’s shoulders in his hands. “I did what I had to.”

“No, you stupid, moronic, idiotic imbecile, what you had to do,” Danny says, punching him in the chest with the little range of motion he can get without letting go of Steve’s shirt first. “What you didn’t have to do was dive in front of a bullet like some kamikaze fucking moron--”

“Well I wasn’t going to let him kill you, Danny, it would have hit you in the god damned head!”

“So you let it!”

“Are you mentally ill,” Steve asks, shoving Danny away. “Are you certifiably--”

Danny reaches up and slaps a hand over Steve’s mouth, hard. “What did I say? Huh,” he says, breathless, eyes wild and maybe even a little wet. Steve’s seen Danny all manner of wired and keyed up after a particularly hard case but he’s never quite seen this. “What did I say? Did I say shut up? This is not a multiple choice, this is not an essay question. This is me saying, no, you are not to jump in front of a god damned bullet meant for me.”

“Danny,” Steve says, or tries to because Danny’s hand is still on his mouth.

“Uh uh,” Danny shouts, “No talking. You just nod your head. You nod your head, yes, Danny, what ever you say, Danny, I will never ever do that again, Danny.”

Steve glares at Danny and because he can’t speak he deliberately and slowly shakes his head in the negative. No sir. Not this guy. Never gonna make that promise.

“God damnit, Steven,” Danny says in a choked voice, and hits the wall. He lets go of Steve and begins pacing. “I hate you, you know that? I hate you.”

“Yeah, well, I know you don’t mean that, because you love me,” Steve says, careful not to move. This is not a moment for sudden movements, this is a don’t spook the Danno moment. “You know how I know? You’d’ve done the same for me.”

“No,” Danny says, pointing at him, but Danny’s always been such a terrible liar. His emotions runs so deep, always so near the surface, he’s a mess of them, he’s a hurricane. “I’d let you rot, you asshole.”

“Listen,” Steve says, scrubbing his hands over his face. “There was no thinking. There was just… You have a daughter. I couldn’t just let you get shot.”

“You are so fucked in the head,” Danny growls, turning to face him, hands clenched into fists at his side. “Do you know? Do you have any idea? Can you even begin to wrap your head around what that would do to me,” Danny says, bringing his hand to his heart.   “You realize that I would never forgive myself if you died jumping in front of a bullet meant for me?”

Steve spread his hands wide “And you realize I would never forgive _myself_ if I let you die right?”

Danny chews on his lip, studying Steve’s face. “I guess we’re at an impasse then.”

Steve’s hands fall. “I guess so.”

Danny steps forward and wraps his fingers around where the bandage is on Steve’s shoulder. Not to hurt this time, but to soothe, to study. “Does it…”

“Yeah,” Steve says quietly, staring into Danny’s eyes. Locked in, unable to look away. “I mean, yeah, I was shot, it hurts.”

Danny’s fingers are soft on his cheek, and he’s standing closer. Steve can practically taste the spearmint gum Danny was chewing earlier in the day. “Sorry I hit you.”

“Was a good one too,” Steve says, and it’s hard to breathe. Not the first time he’s felt like this. Not the first time they’ve done this little dance. It’s not the first time he’s felt half crazy and half hard looking into Danny’s eyes after an adrenaline filled day like today, but today is different. He doesn’t know why but today just about the last thing he’s interested in doing is making whatever this is stop. “Didn’t see it coming.”

“I shouldn’t have,” Danny says, tilting his head to study the bruise on Steve’s cheek. His hand slides back into Steve’s hair absently like he doesn’t know he’s doing it. He probably doesn’t.

But the thing is, there’s no Catherine anymore. No Catherine, no Rachel, no Gabby, and Melissa’s barely been mentioned but a handful of times in months.   “It’s okay.”

“What I’m saying,” Danny says, looking back into his eyes. “What I’m trying to say, through my yelling and hitting and all of this other bullshit with my inability to keep my emotions in check and just fucking say things like a normal, calm human being, is that I love you, okay? I love you. You can’t leave me, you can’t die on me, and you definitely, definitely can not die because you jumped in front of a bullet that was meant for me.”

“Back atcha, Partner,” Steve says, and he reaches over to grab onto Danny’s shoulder. Because he’s even worse at this than Danny, at saying any damn thing that means anything, so he says it by squeezing his shoulder. By letting his hand trace up Danny’s neck to the back of his head, wrapping his fingers in Danny’s hair. “Can we,” he whispers, stepping just that last little bit closer.

“Finally,” Danny whispers back, and he closes the distance, seals his lips on Steve’s as he wraps both hands around his head and kisses the absolute breath out of him. Every single cell of his being is on fire and he thinks if all they ever do from now until forever is just exactly this he’ll be fine.   “You know, you didn’t have to dive in front of a bullet for us to do this, you coulda just said.”

Steve huffs a laugh and kisses him again, backing him up into the island in the middle of the kitchen. “Is that why you let him get your gun? So you could scare the shit out of me and make me take the final step?”

“You,” Danny says, suddenly pulling back and glaring at him. “Uh excuse me Mr Tentative, ‘can we?’ I believe it was me that kissed you?”

“Excuse _me_ , you knocked me upside the head in the middle of that poor paramedic cleaning up my shoulder, maybe I was afraid you’d hit me again if I didn’t ask permission--”

“Stop,” Danny says, resting his hand on Steve’s chest and looking at him. “Just seriously. Please. Please don’t jump in front of another bullet for me again. Please?"

Steve gestures between the two of them, Danny’s mussed up hair and kiss wet lips and his own similar state. “Did you think this was going to give me _less_ of a reason?”

Danny rolls his eyes. “Steve.”

“I can’t make that promise, Danno,” Steve says, leaning in to kiss him again. “Guess you’ll just have to stop making people shoot at you.”


End file.
